Thirteen Steps To Enlightenment
by drkngl790
Summary: Countless murders, a strange calling card... what does this all mean? Detectives Inuyasha, Kagome and Kikyo are about to find something that should never have been uncovered at all.
1. Prologue

Disclaimer : I do not own Inuyasha.

Author: Drkngl790

Thanks to Mike for reading this over and helping me get off to a good start!

Check out his website www . fictionpress . com / asylumgates (get rid of any spaces for the link to work when you paste it into your browser)

**Rating:** M

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**Thirteen Steps to Enlightenment**

_Prologue_

The entire place was dark. Dark, save one small light in the distance, and that one small light drew the teenage boy to it. It drew him with such force that there was no way he could resist. Starting off at a walk, he moved towards the light. It didn't get any closer. He eased into a jog. The light still wasn't any closer. The teen broke into a run. Still, the light would not ease his curiosity, and still it remained at a distance, getting farther away if anything.

"Please!" His own voice sounded far away and dream-like, as if it wasn't even coming from him, but from everything surrounding, which was, of course, nothing. His voice cracking slightly from puberty and anxiousness. It was indeed his voice, and yet, it wasn't his voice. "Please! Don't leave me!" He was so alone here. There was nothing but darkness, and that one small light. The one small light that could be a friend, that could end this loneliness forever. It could be someone to confide in, someone to get away from the horror that was his home, someone to trust. It began to flicker and dim.

"NO! Please! I need to know who you are! I need to know!" He was almost at tears now, which he angrily forced away. Tears were weakness. His father taught him that much. Tears equal weakness, and weakness equals punishment. Everyone knows that punishment equals pain. It was as simple as the circle of life. At the top of the food chain, the predator, was his father, and at the bottom, the prey, meek and disgusting, was himself. No one ever questioned it. That would mean more punishment.

Brought out of his reverie, a voice echoed through the empty space around him. No, not through the empty space, it echoed through his head, ringing over and over again. "Curiosity killed the cat." The voice sent shivers down his spine and the light grew brighter with each syllable. Maybe this light wasn't a friend after all. Maybe, maybe it was someone who would hurt him. Someone like his father. Someone who was at the top of the food chain and would prey on him like a fresh piece of new, juicy red meat. He was about to turn around and head back the way he came, if he could find the way he came, and if there was indeed a way out of this horrid, suddenly cold place. Even the light held no solace for him now. There was nothing left for him in this place, and he though it was time to go home, if you could call it that.

With this resolve firmly set in his head, he turned around and took a step in the opposite direction. Bad move. The scenery rushed by him and the light grew blinding before going out altogether. He felt his stomach lurch and quickly he turned to the right and dropped to his knees, retching all over the dark ground, the contents of his stomach quickly escaping his churning insides.

"Really now, one would think that one such as you would have more manners than to just retch all over The Almighty's lair." Double-take. Did he just say 'The Almighty'? The teen whipped his head to the left, his gaze falling upon a huge dragon. Huge was a bit of an understatement. The dragon, about a mile high, had a white main and piercing red eyes and a strange mask in the middle of its forehead. The teen was shocked and his mouth promptly dropped to the ground, his eyes wide in fear. He sure looked like an almighty being. There was no doubt about that. Waves of power washed over the petrified boy from the huge dragon and made him want to retch all over again, and perhaps he would have, if there had been anything left in his stomach.

"Close your mouth boy. It's not attractive watching you catch flies." The boy could simply give the dragon a blank stare before suddenly making a hacking noise. His eyes widened even more, if that was indeed possible as he continued to choke. Both hands planted firmly on the ground, once more facing away from the overwhelming beast, his eyes shut tight and desperately gasping for air, causing him to choke more, his face beginning to turn an unflattering bluish colour. Suddenly, the coughing stopped and he felt something fall out of his mouth. Gasping for much needed breath, he finally let his gaze fall to the object that had been so rudely ejected from his throat. There lay the most unexpected specimen: a housefly. Once again, his stomach churned and emptied out the remainder of his stomach he thought he had already lost. Wait a second, a housefly?

"_It's not attractive watching you catch flies."_

Turning his terrified gaze once more upon the fear-provoking spawn of Hell, he eventually found his voice once again and spoke. "Who are you? _What_ are you?" The ancient dragon just chuckled, his voice laced with evil and malice.

"Forgive me. I have not been so polite myself. My name is Ryukotsusei, and I am a _ryuujin_1." The boy's eyes widened once again. It was not the demon's mouth that spoke, it was the mask implanted in the middle of his forehead. Instantly, he was reminded of the legend of the Ancient Noh Mask. At once, Ryukotsusei let out a menacing hiss. "**_Never_** refer to me like that! I am not a piece of wood molded to fit a face. I do not crave for a body and I never will." Ryukotsusei shook his great head. "But I am willing to overlook that for now. I have called you to my liar for a reason and I have business to discuss with you. Tell me about yourself."

The teen hesitated for a moment, before carefully rising to his trembling feet, keeping his head down so not to look at this monstrosity in the eye. "My name is,"

"I **_know_** what your name is boy! I told you to tell me about yourself, not what your name was." The _ryuujin_ growled at the young man and demanded, "Now tell me about yourself!"

The young man opened his mouth to start again, but the _ryuujin_ cut him off. "No no! I don't want to know about your life! I don't want to know about your family! I want to know about you! I want to know about what _you_ are, **_who_ **you are." Once again, the boy started to answer, and once again Ryukotsusei cut him off. "Nevermind. I shall tell you. I am extremely disappointed in you. You are afraid. You're afraid of your home, your father, and all those around you. You are afraid that when you die, your suffering will not end and will continue to haunt you forever into all eternity. I am here to tell you you're wrong."

The boy looked shocked. Not only could this _ryuujin_ read his mind, but it could see deeper into himself than he himself could see. This worried him slightly, but if this Ryukotsusei could end all his suffering, he would listen, and he would obey without a second thought. Swallowing, he bravely glared into the red eyes of the dragon. "Tell me how this will be."

Ryukotsusei smiled, or rather, the mask did. "Good boy. Have you heard of _Perfect Enlightenment_?" There was a small pause before the _ryuujin_ snapped in an annoyed tone. "I can tell by the look on your face you haven't. Fine. I was hoping I wouldn't have to explain, but so be it. Perfect Enlightenment is a Buddhist act in which one transcends all pain and suffering and attains Nirvana. Do you understand now? Good! Do you want to attain Nirvana?"

The young man nodded his head slowly, a small smile on his face. The _ryuujin_ smiled as well, though his was more of a malicious sort of smirk than a genuine smile. "Then I shall tell you how to obtain this Nirvana. Thirteen people. Thirteen souls. They must all die a perfect death." He paused for a moment and with the look on the young man's face, quickly continued, changing the tone of his voice to a falsely reassuring one. "Do not fret. Not only shall you obtain Perfect Enlightenment, but the thirteen dead souls will too. Is that not reassuring? Not only will you obtain your Nirvana, but you will help others obtain theirs too. Think of the possibilities."

The young man's eyes widened. _I would be murdering thirteen people, for myself. No, not just for myself, for others as well. That makes up for it all, right? Of course it doesn't, but how else will I obtain peace at last?_ By this time, Ryukotsusei could tell the young boy was having an inner battle with himself.

_He can't win. There's no way. He shall fall into the trap._ The teen looked up once more with a firm resolve. "I will do it. But how will I know which people to kill?" The _ryuujin_ simply smiled.

"That's all taken care of. Now **_GO_**!" He closed his eyes and felt his stomach churn, once again, for the third time that night, felt like he was going to retch.

Upon opening his eyes, he found himself in unfamiliar surrounding and on something not quite hard enough to be the ground he had recently resided on. Blinking and rubbing his eyes, trying to clear away the sleep and the blurriness hindering his vision, recognition came to him. This was his room. He was back home in this Hellhole. That meant, it was all a dream, wasn't it? There was no Perfect Enlightenment. Letting out a growl of disappointment and despair, he reached over to turn on his lamp. There sitting on his bedside table was a piece of paper. It was numbered 1 to 13 with a name scrawled beside each number. At the top of the page, in big, bold red letters, it read:

**_The Thirteen Souls_**

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1_Ryuujin_ – Dragon God; Dragon King 


	2. The First Victim

Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha.

Author: Drkngl790

**Rating:** M

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**Thirteen Steps To Enlightenment**

_Chapter 1: The First Victim_

The sun was shining, the birds were chirping, and the headache was pounding. _Ugh. I knew I shouldn't have drunk that much last night._ A very disgruntled Kagura slowly slipped her feet and legs over the side of the bed, quickly moving a hand against her head, as though that would stop her vision from spinning. Of course, that didn't work, and she fell backwards, clumsily landing against another body.

_Mmm...this person is quite comforta-_ "Holy shit!" Kagura shot out of her bed, placing her weight on her wobbly legs. Her knees refused to support her weight and she crumbled to the ground like a ton of bricks. As quickly as she could, she scrambled backwards, in the opposite direction of her bed, the same bed which held a sleeping man. A _naked_ sleeping man, none the less. _What the Hell happened last night?_ Kagura let out a loud sigh, slowly getting to her feet and moving into the bathroom, also the closest location of a much needed bottle of aspirin and a glass of water.

She slowly stumbled out of her room, but not without running into the wall first. Carefully as she could, she made her way down the hallway, tripping over the rug and missing the bathroom door. This caused her to turn around again, trip once more on the ill-placed rug, and stumble through the bathroom door, amazingly without self-injury. _I have to remember to throw out that stupid rug. If I don't kill myself soon from running into walls and tripping over rugs, this splitting headache will surely do me in._ And with that, she threw open the medicine cabinet with a loud bang.

"Who, what, when, why and where?" The man that had only moments ago been sleeping soundly in her bed came running into the bathroom, without a stumble, without a bump into a wall. Very peculiar.

Kagura eyed the black-haired man curiously, trying to figure out who this stranger was. He had obviously not gotten drunk last night; either that or he was one of the lucky ones who didn't suffer from hangovers. Personally, she was hoping for the latter, as she wasn't particularly fond of being taken advantage of. Her eyes wandered over his naked body and she blushed. Then, something hit her. Her eyes moved past his frame to peer into the hallway, landing on a picture taken at a family reunion some years ago, which had been knocked into an obscure angle while she had tried to make it to the bathroom. Her eyes widened. Knowing this person, her first thought had been right. He hadn't been drunk.

"Miroku..." She could feel her eyebrow twitching under her disheveled bangs.

"Yes my dear Kagura?"

"Please don't tell me we did what I think we did last night."

"You mean, you don't want me to tell you that last night we played strip poker, which might I add, you are very bad at," He winked. "Followed by naked twister, followed by a night full of sex?" He grinned.

Kagura sighed angrily. "Yes, that is exactly what I didn't want you to tell me."

Miroku simply grinned again. "Oops?" He did not sound sorry in the least.

"Cousin," Kagura quietly stated, scrutinizing him with a cold glare. "Why are you here instead of at your girlfriends? Why did we do all this last night? And why don't you have a hangover?" _I probably shouldn't have asked that last question._

"Well," Miroku lifted a finger with each answer to number them off. "Sango is currently visiting her Grandparent's in Europe, we did all of this last night because you got piss drunk and hit on me," That of course, had been a lie, but Miroku wasn't about to let his dear cousin know that he had indeed taken advantage of her. "And I didn't get a hangover because I wasn't drunk." _Oops._ "Um, just rewind and forget the last thirty seconds of our conversation." He smiled nervously.

"Oh, no you don't, you _bastard_!" She brought her hand back by her ear, clenching it into a fist and sending it hurtling in Miroku's direction. Kagura was never one to beat around the bush, and she was not the kind to slap either. Needless to say, Miroku went flying backwards, throwing out his arms wildly, hoping he would catch something that would stop his fall. Catching the frame of the doorway, he promptly stopped himself from running into the wall on the other side of the hallway with a violent jerk.

Miroku lifted a hand to his painfully throbbing nose, and upon bringing his hand back in front of his tearing eyes, saw his hand covered in blood. As he turned his blurry gaze up to the woman who hit him, expecting to see a smirk, he was mildly surprised. Kagura was sitting on the edge of the ceramic tub, shaking her hand which would be collecting an assortment of coloured bruises on the knuckles, with a slightly pained expression. She had indeed hit him hard.

Kagura's head shot up as she heard the doorbell ring. Quickly pushing Miroku all the way through the door way, his back finally colliding with the awaiting wall, she rushed down the hallway to the stairs, flying down them and answering the door. She was greeted with a stuttering mail deliveryman.

"Um, uh...miss?" Kagura was curious as to why the man turned his head away, his cheeks tinged a deep cherry red, the heat seeming to radiate off them.

"Yes?" She answered impatiently. She had a cousin who was going to die soon upstairs, and she wanted to do it quickly.

"You...uh..." This man was obviously having a difficult time speaking.

"Are you here for a reason?" She snapped on the poor man. "Or are you just here to waste the time I currently do not have to waste? I have very important business to attend to and frankly, I am extremely put off right now. It would not be a good time to step on my last remaining nerve!" All right, so maybe put off had been a bit of an understatement.

Seeming to have had some sense knocked into him when Kagura had harshly scolded him, he quickly muttered a small, "You have no clothes on right now."

All of the colour drained out of Kagura's face, turning her skin a sickly white colour. Quickly and rudely shutting the door in the man's face, she quickly sped off to the bathroom located on the first floor, grabbing the housecoat hanging off the hook of the bathroom door. Hastily putting it on, she sped back to the front door, quickly tying the belt in a single knot, and throwing the door open, patting her disheveled hair down in an attempt to gain some much needed dignity back.

Being so humiliated to an extreme she'd never felt before caused her attitude to become a little more humble towards the very embarrassed man standing on her front porch. _Miroku, that lecher. He is **sooo** going to pay for this...with his_ **_life_**. Using the uttermost polite voice she could muster at the moment, she uttered a small, "Is there something I can do for you, sir?"

"Yes ma'am. There's a package for you here. I need you to sign here and here for proof of delivery." He motioned to the said spots on the page.

Hastily grabbing the clipboard from the still baffled man, she scrawled her signature on the lines indicated and thrust it back at the man, eager to get back to her murder. After handing the package over to Kagura, the man turned away and allowed a smile to creep over his face. He had just seen an extremely beautiful woman naked. _Maybe this is going to be a good day after all._

Quickly shutting the door, she made her way to the kitchen table. Picking at the edge of a piece of tape, she tried to pry the packaging tape away from the box. _These things are always over packaged and bound in at least three rolls of tape._ Uttering a small growl from the back of her throat, she grabbed a key from the key ring hanging by the fridge and proceeded to hack away through the spaces in the folds of the box, tearing the tape away.

Finally managing to tear the tape away, she threw the keys to the opposite end of the table, where they landed with a jingle as they slipped a little ways further down the table, dropping off the end and landing with a loud clatter on the floor. _What on earth could anyone be sending me? It's not my birthday, I haven't ordered anything, and it certainly isn't a holiday._ Throwing open the flaps of the box, she peered curiously into the dark box.

Stumbling backwards, a hand flying over her open mouth, she let out a high-pitched scream.

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"Kikyo, Inuyasha. She's waiting in room B." Both detectives nodded and headed in the direction of the interrogation room, where a big black letter on the door window labeled the room, 'B'. The silver-haired hanyou threw open the door and stalked into the room, taking a seat across from a currently shell-shocked, disheveled woman.

Inuyasha opened his mouth to speak, but all that came out was a cough. A female cough. Looking up in the direction of which the irritated cough came from, his amber gaze met the cold hard gaze of his partner, Kikyo. "Excuse me Inuyasha. I believe the women get to sit, seeing as there are two chairs, two women, and one man. Unless, of course, you do in fact think of yourself as a woman." A smirk grazed her features, the only smile that ever seemed to grace her features these days.

With a grumble, Inuyasha rose to his feet and moved to the side, allowing Kikyo the pleasantry of having somewhere to rest her bottom upon, instead of creating blisters from her high heels by pacing around the room as Inuyasha was currently doing. "Inuyasha," She barked out, though she kept her voice down, not wanting to alarm the woman in front of her too much than she already was. "Keep still! I believe you're making our guest very uncomfortable." She turned to the woman and gave a small apologetic smile, though anyone who knew Kikyo would know that it was not genuine in any way, and there only for the comfort of the woman in order to get her to talk.

"Kagura is it? May I call you Kagura?" The woman simply nodded, avoiding eye contact at all times from both detectives in the room. "Could you tell me what time you heard the knock on the door?"

Kagura gave a slight nod, mumbling something incoherent under her breath. Inuyasha, being the ever so impatient one, turned towards the woman, and in a voice that certainly didn't scream sympathy, asked, "Could you speak up? Even I can't hear with you my hanyou ears."

The woman simply nodded again and opened her mouth to speak once more, her voice coming out a little stronger than before, and Inuyasha could smell the fear, stress and anxiety swarming out in waves from the frightened woman. "It was around 11 'o' clock in the morning. I had just woken up when the doorbell rang, so of course, I went to check to see who could be paying me a visit so early in the morning."

She was interrupted by a fist pounding on the table and an irritated voice growling, "You lie."

Kagura looks surprised. She could feel her anger rising. How _dare_ this insolent hanyou try and tell her whether or not she was lying, regardless whether or not she was telling the facts straight. She was determined to keep her little unexpected rendez-vous a secret from everyone. She was already ashamed and her guilty conscious was enough to drive anyone to drink, or in this case, drive her _not_ to drink for fear of a repeat of the previous night. This rising temperature in her emotions gave her a little more courage to speak up a little louder. "And why would I lie? I found my own Uncle's head staring up at me this morning from inside a dark cardboard shipping box, and you dare say I lie about what I was doing? I think I might be traumatized! I woke up this morning to find my cousin naked beside me because I had gotten piss drunk the night before, ran downstairs to answer the door, only to find out I was donning only my birthday suit, and then find Naraku's lifeless eyes staring up at me, _dismembered_ from his body! My own **_Uncle_**!" Kagura's perfectly manicured hands flew to her now gaping mouth, her eyes wide in shock at what she just revealed. Her 'oops' was covered up from a burst of laughter from a certainly amused hanyou.

"Inuyasha!" Kikyo snapped, annoyance clearly edged into her hard voice, cutting through the laughter like a knife. "Control yourself!" Inuyasha, however, did the exact opposite.

"Control myself? Kikyo, darling, you must be kidding! Here she just reveals she's lied right to our faces about a very serious problem, **and** to top it off, she's committed incest, something we should be putting her away for!"

Kikyo turned to Kagura, who had turned timid again, her eyes seeming to find an interesting odd-coloured stain on the carpet of the small box-shaped room. "Please excuse us. I think I need to have a word with my _partner_." Inuyasha immediately stopped laughing. The way the word _partner_ had rolled off her tongue most obviously indicated he was in deep trouble. Moving off her seat, Kikyo strode to the door; holding it open and pointing out into the empty hallway, save for two people. "Out."

Inuyasha's ears flattened against his head as he quickly marched out the door, giving a quick salute to Kikyo with a quirky smile flashed in her direction, obviously trying to lighten his partner's foul mood. Rolling her eyes, she followed out on Inuyasha's heels, slamming the door behind her, the sound resonating through the otherwise empty hallway, causing the two people who had watched the whole exchange from outside turn their heads in their direction.

Kikyo took in a deep breath. _1…2…3…4…5…oh screw it._ "INUYASHA, YOU ASS!" Her voice echoed throughout the hallway in a similar fashion to the slamming door. "What in God's name were you thinking? This is not a terrorist we're talking to! This is not a suspect! She is a victim too! We have to handle her carefully or she will shut up entirely and we will learn _nothing_ from her! Do you understand? For God's sake Inuyasha! Are you even listening to a word I've said?"

"Uh, ya, sure. That tactic should work. Now let's go in there and squeeze the truth out of her." His clawed hand reached out to grab the doorknob. Kikyo grabbed the back of his shirt and dragged him back a few feet.

"You are _unbearable_ Inuyasha! You weren't even listening!"

"I was too!"

"Then repeat to me what I was just saying!"

"You said, and I quote, 'You are _unbearable_ Inuyasha! You weren't even listening!' "

Kikyo threw up her hands in exasperation! "That's not what I was asking you t repeat, you dog!"

Inuyasha had to bite his lip to keep back the insult he was ready to throw at her. A trickle of blood ran down his lip and his tongue darted out to lick it up in a smooth motion, attempting to make it look like he was simply wetting his lips. He gave a sigh if resignation. "You asked me to repeat what you were just saying. What you just said was what you had said to me before you asked me to repeat what you had just said. Therefore, that would be-"

Kikyo had had enough. Before he could finish what he was about to say, she spoke. "That is **it **Inuyasha! I am going home. I can no longer deal with you tonight!" Turning to the young man and older women who were presently gawking at the two quarrelling adults, she declared, "I'm going home for tonight. Kouga, please tell Kagura that she will have to stay the night here and I alone will be talking her tomorrow. Apologize to her for me for the inconvenience of both Inuyasha and the discomfort of this building. Kaede, ma'am. I apologize. I simply can not work any longer today."

And with that, Kikyo stalked down the hallway, grabbing her coat and briefcase from her office, locking the door behind her and left the building, everyone heard her mumble, "I think I need a vacation."

* * *

Not very far away from there, a young man was sitting on his hard bed, donning only a pair of boxers, examining his rough and calloused hands. Taking a pair of old rusted and worn nail clippers, he began to dig the dirt out from underneath his fingernails. Noticing his nails had a reddish tint to them, he grabbed a piece of paper from his bedside table.

Naraku

Taking a small pencil in his worn hands, he etched a dark line through the name. One down, twelve to go. Placing the crumpled paper back on his bedside table, he got up off his bed to commence the long and tedious task of cleaning the stains of blood off his fingernails.

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A/N: 

Looking for a Beta Reader.


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